


give it all or nothin'

by arexnna



Series: lost stars [18]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Neverland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arexnna/pseuds/arexnna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>because tumblr was/is doing a neverland renaissance, and i love me some neverland angst<br/>post- ‘i will win your heart’ speech</p>
            </blockquote>





	give it all or nothin'

There are dozens of other things she could be doing right now to fight the insomnia that’s won the battle against sleep instead of exactly what she  _is_  doing. She could very well be plotting Pan’s death, planning out every inch of that demon boy’s demise, or perhaps something less dark - like collecting some extra firewood because it’s better to have extra than none, right? 

Maybe  _dozens_  is an exaggeration, but the point is – she shouldn’t be doing  _this_.

It’s surprisingly easy to find him considering the lengths he’d gone through trying to avoid her for much of the day, sitting just by the outskirts of the camp they’d newly settled in, set with his pirate-brooding kit: dark, contemplative eyes, jaw tight in place and rum flask on hand. He hears her coming, the crunching of leaves and branches a total give away, and when his stare is pulled from his reverie, eyes meeting hers, he doesn’t look remotely surprised.

It’s the first time they’ve been alone since well,  _yesterday_ , but it’s a momentous occasion given that their last personal encounter was basically him telling her he’d wait for her and implications ( _more like declarations_ ) of him winning her over heart were made.

She settles by the ground next to him, the rock he sits on putting him on a higher level than she. Wordlessly, he offers her his flask, and she accepts it with a smile she’s not too sure he caught, but the thought’s there anyway.

While a comfortable silence, she’s not used to this with  _anyone_  really, finding the comfort uncomfortable, that it leaves her vulnerable and god knows how terrible that could possibly be.

“Here’s not the best place to be on watch.” It’s the first thing that had popped into her mind when she’d found him, and she’d wanted that as her entrance line, but apparently she needed a couple of minutes and the loosening of some booze for her to find her voice. And now that it’s out there, she realises it wasn’t quite the ingenious opening she’d hoped for.

“That would be correct,” he agrees, adding, “if I were the one on first watch, that is.”

And  _right_ , they’d agreed that Neal would be the one on first watch tonight, which only meant that he’d probably seen her walk off into the forest in the same direction Hook had. She cringes at what he could possibly be thinking until she realises that -  _oh right_ , she doesn’t quite care.

Her eyes drift from his flask in her hand to he himself, and this angle does his profile wonders – not that he looks bad from other viewpoints or anything – and she sees how his scruff has thickened the slightest, the skin under his eyes have darkened by a shade and that his jaw remains in a permanent clench (-not that that doesn’t compliment the already sharp jawline of his).

She’d seen somewhere in a film or a series perhaps, that you only need twenty seconds of insane courage, and something ( _whether good or bad, that depends_ ) will come out of it.

She considers it for a moment, how twenty seconds is all she’ll need, but it’s  _him_  and twenty seconds will never be enough.

When she pushes herself up from the dirt, she notices how he stops his gaze from following her movement, and she pretends that the obvious reluctance doesn’t affect her, but it does and Emma doesn’t do well with the effects. She’s  _this_  close from getting away unscathed, but when he doesn’t react to her sudden departure, it sets of the irrational in her.

“You- you can’t just  _do_  this,” she snaps, and when she’s turned back facing him, his attention is with her, “You can’t just say and do all  _that_  and be like  _this_ ,” she gestures wildly at him and as shown, she’s not the eloquent or graceful one of this  _relationship, friendship – whatever the hell this is._

“Pray tell,” his voice comes in a sigh as he pushes himself off the rock and stepping in towards her in one move ( _see? **Grace**._ ), “what I was  _and_  am doing, because you’re not painting quite the clear picture, love.”

He’s infuriating, an asshole, he gets under her skin – you name it – and she shakes her head in frustration at him. “You wanna know? How about we start at the beginning, huh? Let’s talk about how you’re the  _worst_  villain I’ve ever come across, let’s discuss how people like  _you_ ,” she jabs a finger at his chest, “aren’t supposed to come back for the good guys. And then you come in here with all your empathy and understanding and  _god_  – are you  _even_  a villain?”

Her voice is loud and she remembers that it is the middle of the night and that they are just outside the camp, and being unwilling to wake anyone up for them to be lead here, she says softer, “And then you kiss me.”

“I think you mean I  _save_  your father’s arse and  _you_  kiss  _me_.”

“Always so modest, Hook,” she spits his name and her control over her volume loosens again. She’s tempted to just walk away – maybe slap the smugness off his face on the way out, but it’s that exact grin that makes her stay because  _fuck him_ , he should know how much of an ass he is, “And then you come in with your full-of-shit confessions and promises and now you brood and ignore me, and  _why_? Because the man I told I wished he were dead so I could  _move on_  is back?” She’s out of breath by the end of her rant, either from the weight of her words or the humidity of this goddamned hell-turned-jungle, or maybe a mixture of both. “Where would you like to start?”

She’s sparked a fire, she can see that much in his blue eyes – the colour turning darker with anger, maybe annoyance –  _that_ , she can’t quite place. She braces herself as he takes the smallest step towards her, prepping herself for the storm she knows she’s the cause of and with the heat in his eyes,  _finally - she’s giving him **something**._

“Perhaps we could start at the part where if I weren’t such a  _terrible_  villain, you’d be stuck in that forsaken Storybrooke while your son was  _alone_  in this bloody hell – a hell that I  _never_  saw myself coming back to. Maybe we should start at how  _you_  of all people  _should_  know that nothing that’s come from these lips are a lie – not that kiss, not my confession, and  _never_  my promises.”

She does know this – after all, if she’s good for anything, it’s spotting lies, and not a single siren had gone off at his words. But he can’t know that – not with how she  _still_  can’t bring herself to trusting him fully, not with how her walls remain high and guarded.

His jaw clenches and unclenches, she notices how his grip over his flask forces his knuckles white, and with the broken eye contact, she hears him let out a long breath before stepping back. When her eyes dart back up, he’s tucking his flask away before he runs his hand over his face. “Or maybe at the point where I was backing off because you need to find your boy and you don’t need any distractions detouring you from that – especially not a lowly one-handed pirate.”

There’s a tinge of self-loathing behind his words, and she wonders who’d brought it up – whether it was Pan or Gold or maybe even a passing remark from Neal or her mom – either way she itches to soothe his ache, telling him that  _that_  shouldn’t define him, but she’s in no position to comfort him, especially after the words she’d thrown his way.

“Perhaps, we shouldn’t start,” he says resigned, and this is  _not_  what she wanted. She wanted him to fight, she wanted  _heat_ and  _anger_ , she wanted a clichéd anger-fueled post-fight make-out session, but instead she gets, “I’d walk away now, but these areas are no place for a lady alone, and frankly,” he pauses, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment, “the Gods above know how I’d never be able to walk away from you.”

She doesn’t need to read into his words to know what he means – he’s laid it out like he’s done his heart the majority of this journey they’ve taken together – but her walls are hard to scale and she’s feeling trapped behind them, unable to climb over to let herself respond, and damn him because at the sad nod he gives her,  _he gets it_.

“You should head back, love. We wouldn’t want anyone worried looking for you.” It’s his final resolve and she knows not to dispute him on it, not that she actually  _has_  anything to say to that, so Emma does Emma - she nods, turns and leaves.

She doesn’t allow herself to look back.

(She tells herself it’s because she doesn’t want to give him false hope.)

(She ignores that she knows it’s because if she looked at him a moment longer, she’d run right back into him.)


End file.
